Tycen Lannister

The nursery felt smaller that night, its stone walls pressing in as the fire's glow danced across the lion tapestries. It was 263 AC, a year no one in Casterly Rock marked with the weight I did. My mother's words lingered in the air, soft and heavy, curling around me like the smoke from the hearth.

"A brother," she'd said, her hand resting on the faint swell of her belly. "Two of them."

Cersei and Jaime—the names cut through my mind, sharp and familiar, though my tongue couldn't form them. I lay in her arms, my tiny body still, my green eyes locked on her face. She smiled down at me, her golden hair catching the firelight, unaware of the storm brewing inside me.

The sea roared beyond the window, a restless growl that filled the quiet. Joanna—my mother now—shifted me gently, settling deeper into the cushioned chair. Her shawl, a soft gray fur flecked with white, slipped slightly, pooling around her shoulders. The scent of lavender clung to her, blending with the faint salt tang carried on the drafts. She hummed a low, soothing tune, her voice weaving through the room like a thread of warmth. It should've calmed me, but my mind churned, restless and jagged.

I wasn't just Tycen Lannister, a babe born to crimson and gold in 262 AC. I was something more—someone from a world of screens and stories, reborn into this one with memories that didn't fit. The realization had struck days ago, but it sank deeper now, pinned beneath her words. Cersei and Jaime were coming, and with them, the spiral of ambition and ruin I'd watched unfold. I knew their futures—knew the incest, the crowns, the blood. Tywin, that cold shadow who ruled this keep, would forge it all, his will as unyielding as the Rock itself.

But it wasn't just them that haunted me. Far to the north, beyond the Wall, something else stirred—nightwalkers, the White Walkers, their icy eyes glinting in a darkness I couldn't see but couldn't forget. In my old life, I'd watched them march, seen their dead rise, their frost creeping south to shatter kingdoms. Here, in 263 AC, they were a whisper, a threat no one in the Westerlands heeded. Yet my chest tightened at the thought, a nervous flutter I couldn't shake. They were out there, waiting, and I knew how it ended—dragons, fire, a brittle victory—if the story held true.

My breath hitched, a faint tremor rippling through me. Joanna paused her humming, her brow creasing as she brushed a finger across my cheek.

"What's this, little one?" she murmured, her voice soft as the fur she wore. "Are you cold?"

She pulled the blanket tighter around me, a swath of crimson wool edged with golden threads, and rocked me gently. I couldn't tell her—not the chill of the room, not the dread of those frozen shadows. My mind raced, grasping for control. If I didn't meddle too much, if I let the plot unfold as I remembered, the nightwalkers would be stopped without me lifting a finger. Dragons would rise, heroes would fight. I just had to wait, to survive. Still, the fear gnawed, a quiet panic beneath my stillness.

The fire crackled, a spark spitting onto the hearthstone, and I stared at it, my infant eyes tracing the flame's flicker. How had I landed here, in 262 AC, with a man's mind in a babe's body? The life before was fading—snippets of noise, a hum of machinery, a glow I couldn't place. Had I died? Slipped away and woken in this crib? The questions clawed at me, but there were no answers, only the steady thump of my mother's heartbeat against my ear.

Days stretched into weeks, the nursery my constant confine. The wet nurses bustled in and out, their hands rough and quick as they fed me or changed the linens. Sharp-Nose—Myrla, I'd learned—took charge most often, her thin lips pursed as she muttered about my silence.

"He's a queer one," she'd say to the others, her voice low but carrying. "Doesn't fuss, doesn't laugh. Just watches."

She wasn't wrong. I couldn't laugh, not with the weight of what I knew, and crying felt useless when I couldn't speak the why.

The room etched itself into me, its details sharp against my growing senses. The crib's dark wood gleamed in the candlelight, its carvings of lion claws and curling tails smoothed by time. The tapestries shivered when the wind slipped through the narrow windows, their golden lions prowling across crimson fields.

A small table stood by the hearth, cluttered with a bronze pitcher, folded cloths, and a candlestick, its wax dripping in slow, pale rivers. Beyond the windows, the sea stretched gray and endless, its waves battering the cliffs of Casterly Rock with a rhythm I felt in my bones.

Joanna's visits were my lifeline, brief escapes from the monotony. She'd come in the evenings, when the keep quieted, her steps soft against the rugs. Sometimes she'd sit by the fire, her shawl draped over one shoulder, and tell me tales—of Lann the Clever, who'd swindled a kingdom, or lions whose roars shook the stars.

Her voice painted vivid scenes: golden fields, glittering halls, a legacy carved in stone.

"You'll be part of it, Tycen," she'd say, her fingers tracing my brow. "The first of us, strong and bright."

I wanted to sink into her words, to forget the nightwalkers and the game I'd seen end in fire and ice. But the truth held me fast. I was a witness to a story I couldn't unmake, and those icy shadows lingered in my thoughts, a distant threat I prayed would resolve without me.

One morning, as autumn's bite sharpened the air, Myrla carried me from the nursery. My body had grown—still frail, but sturdier, my head steady enough to turn and look. She bundled me in a thick blanket, grumbling about the draft, and stepped into the corridor.

The walls here were broad, their sandstone blocks worn smooth, lit by torches flickering in iron sconces. Servants hurried past, heads bowed, their footsteps muffled by the rugs—crimson and gold, always that pattern.

We descended a winding stair, the air warming as we neared the great hall. Myrla's grip tightened, her bony fingers pressing into my side, and I squirmed, earning a sharp "Hold still" from her.

The hall yawned before us, vast and resonant, its ceiling a lattice of dark beams strung with chandeliers. Their candles dripped wax onto the stone floor, leaving pale splatters. Banners hung from the walls, their golden lions snarling down at the long tables where stewards and guards broke their fast.

Tywin was there, seated at the high table, his presence a cold weight even from afar. I couldn't see his face clearly—my eyes weren't sharp enough—but I knew him by the stillness he commanded. His dark tunic was plain but flawless, a single gold clasp at his throat glinting in the light.

His voice cut through the murmur, low and exact, as he spoke to a steward about grain stores.

"See it done," he said, each word a decree, and the man scurried off like a scolded hound.

Myrla lingered near the hearth, rocking me absently as she watched the room. A guard laughed too loud, earning a steward's glare, and a maid darted past with a tray of goblets, her hands trembling.

I drank it in—the clatter of plates, the hum of voices, the gleam of gold on Tywin's table. This was Casterly Rock in 263 AC, alive and breathing, a fortress of power I'd only known through a screen.

That night, back in the nursery, I lay awake, staring at the lion above my crib. Its stitched eyes glowed faintly in the candlelight, unblinking and fierce.

My mother's news about the twins rattled around in my head, mixing with that nagging chill about the nightwalkers up north. They were still a long way off, though—about twenty-seven years until the rebellion I remembered kicked things off, and forty-three until the real mess with the dragons and the dead started in 298 AC.

If I just kept my head down, maybe it'd all sort itself out like I'd seen.

For now, it was just me, the crib, and the sea's endless grumble outside.

Plenty of time to mull it over, one day at a time.